Mr. Whitten in his studio in TriBeCa in 1983.
"... My first studio in New York was a storefront at 369 East 10th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C. Stanley’s Bar was on the corner of Avenue B at 12th Street. The Lower East Side in 1960 was a thriving young art community and Stanley’s Bar was our favorite meeting place. Every night of the week I could speak with Ishmael Reed, Calvin C. Hernton, David Henderson, and other members of the Umbra Group of Poets and Writers. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg often frequented the bar on off hours. Stanley, the Polish owner, knew Charlie Parker who was also a visitor in the early fifties. I loved to hear Stanley’s stories about Charlie Parker spending hours playing the jukebox and playing Polish polkas! Stanley, like Mike Fanelli who I would meet later in the sixties when I moved to the Lower West Side, was a friend of the artist. You could always get a hot meal on credit, cash a check without having a routine identification card; this was important because who had a bank account? The first time I ever showed a painting in public was at Stanley’s…a small group of collage paintings from 1963. ..."
The Paris Review
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